By watching this video i come to realise there is alot more to this world than i thought. It was really shocking to see how much power the cooporate world has over the real world. Annie Leonard explains how there is five stages to life cycle of a product and how all these stages affect so many people in so many negative ways, which i think is wrong cause eventually we are going to terminate ourselves!
Some facts were really eye opening and really shows that we as humans aren't performing the tasks as stewards of the planet!! Like in the past 3 decades 1/3 of the planets resources have been consumed, what is this seriously we should be trying to preserve our resources, trying to re use them, we all are aware of this though heartless co-operate people just keep doing it to make money!
The video describes the effects the 5 stages of the lifecycle and how each cycle affects the environment's flora and fauna, also us human beings.
The Stage of Prodcution uses energy to mix toxic chemicals with natural resources to make toxic products. We don’t know the full impact of toxic into products. 100000 synthetic chemicals sinerdistic health impacts aren’t tested! Due to cutting down of trees and clearing land, 200000 people are day are moving into cities to look for jobs because there land has been wiped out by extraction. These impacts on humanity and we are doing nothing to change it. We are killing our own kind and there are people out there without hearts shouldn't designers like ourselves try and make a change in their products as they are fully aware of all of this!
Distribution of products globally is the most unjust type of labour in the cycle. In the video they used an example of a radio costing $4.99, the real cost is that of people who lost their land, people who are contaminated by toxins, different countries labouring to produce products and resources which are under-cost. So morally alot is lost, which is really confusing because we treat our own in such a inhuman way.
99% of stuff we consume is trashed within 6 months in the US. Victor lobow quotes “our enormously productive economy… demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption… we need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.” Now from what I understand, why is this occurring? if people are aware of this happening why is it happening?! If you think about it this way, people are being told to buy more things, being brain washed and again these are the cooperate people telling us this just to make money. We should be saying "hey our things are still functional!! why are we chucking them out!!!" The way planned obsolescence is put into the products is really fast starting from Industrial designers in the 50’s, how they planned obsolesce in their products so well that it leaves faith in the consumer to buy a new one. But morally as designers i think that we should be designing stuff to be more functional rather than stylish but still have the style to last such as the Fender Stratorcastor, a design in guitar unchanged and function still the same!
Perceived Obsolescence is another factor to the consumption of products. This convinces people to throw away stuff that is still functional, such as an ipod does the same as 1st generation but looks better. Fashions are prime example of this issue, you don’t keep up to date with products then spciety mocks you. Advertisments and media have a big role in this. People see over 3000 ads a day which is more than a person saw in their life time 50 years ago. Phycologically they make consumers feel pathetic for not having all the good stuff and things but they can fix this by buying the advertised objects. The media only show the consumption part of the life cycle. Happiness is declining as we have more stuff but have less time for leisure. Leisure now consists of watching tv or shopping and the US shops about 3-4 times more than Europe. As this world becomes more busy we tend to buy products to give us satisfaction giving the co-operate people satisfaction.
I believe this is the stage where we can make most difference in society to fix the previous problems but even though its not enough. In the US, 4.5 pounds a garbage a day produce per person. Garbage either dumped in land fills or burned then dumped in land fills polluting our ground, air and water. The toxics used in the production stage are burned releasing them into the atmosphere and even making super toxics due to the insineration. Dioxin is the most dangerous man made toxin known and incineraters are the number source of Dioxin’s.
Recylcing helps reduce prssure at disposal and extraction stage. Even if recycling 100% of waste from consumers doesn’t fix the core of the problem. Some products are designed not to be recycled like juice boxes with the metal, plastics and paper which the materials can’t be separated for true recycling
Solutions for this linear method is to make things sustainable, zero waste, green chemistry, closed loop production and use renewable energy. The fact is that as a whole society, co-operate and socially, we should take a look at our actions and change them for good because sooner or later this planet is going to waste itself and along with that, us too.
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